While ride-hailing company Grab Indonesia scored a major coup earlier this week by hiring former National Police Chief Badrodin Haiti as their President Commissioner, their biggest rival, homegrown tech company Go-Jek, is now in the spotlight for finalizing their tie-up with taxi industry leader Blue Bird Group, a partnership which gives Go-Jek’s users the ability and convenience of ordering pickups from the largest fleet of taxis in Jakarta through the Go-Jek app.
Users just need to make a pick-up order using the app’s Go-Car service. The order can now be fulfilled by a Go-Car partner driver or a Blue Bird taxi, depending on which is available nearest to you.
No matter which picks you up, users still get the same fixed price as they would with Go-Car. They also retain the option to use Go Jek’s cashless payment system Go-Pay.
The initiative is the result of a partnership between Go-Jek and Blue Bird announced way back in May of last year.
While the head of public relations for Blue Bird, Teguh Wijayanto, said at the time that they hoped their taxis could be ordered through the Go-Jek app by the end of the month, nothing materialised.
That was until yesterday, when Go-Jek app users were greeted to a pop-up announcing how Go-Car and Bluebird were joining forces.
The feature is currently only available in Jakarta though, with no word when it will become available in other parts of Indonesia.
Blue Bird currently has its own booking app and about 30% of their bookings already come from online.
This agreement offers Blue Bird another online channel to attract customers, while giving Go-Jek access to the largest fleet of taxis in Indonesia.
The move comes shortly after a similar partnership was announced between ride-hailing company Uber and Indonesia’s second-largest taxi operator, Express Group.
Through the scheme, Express taxi drivers can use the UberX service for bookings, while Uber drivers are able to lease vehicles without any taxi attributes or brandings through the Express Group.
These partnerships signal a new dynamic in the transportation service industry and a move towards greater reliance on online bookings for customers.
Time will tell which partnership proves more successful, but consumers will likely be the main winners with these arrangements which should produce cheaper, more efficient transportation options for all in the future.
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